It has been a rather good week for boxing. The battered old game has picked itself off the canvas, Hayefever infecting the nation following  our David's dancing demolition of Russian Goliath, Nicolay Valuev, the moribund mammoth who turned out to be more pussycat than ogre. 

 

Moreover, we also saw the launching of a new future for the amateurs with a swish reception at the House of Commons to announce the new World Series of Boxing (WSB) in the presence of the head-honcho from AIBA, the sport's governing body, one Dr C K Wu, the Taiwanese tycoon who dramatically claims to have received death threats while single-handedly, he says, cleaning-up up the sport. "No more corruption. The cheating is over." Maybe, but the in-fighting isn't.

 

The IMG-backed WSB, an inter-city league tournament, with London as one of the dozen franchises, will start next autumn and looks promising. We are told rewards for the boxers could see the best earning up to a quarter of a million pounds a year providing they sign a three-year contract. Enough, reckons Dr Wu, to keep them from the clutches of the pro promoters.   

 

Will it work? Television is crucial. It may be attractive to networks in Asia and parts of Europe but in the UK at the moment non-terrestrial channel seems remotely interested in seeing people biff each other around except in The Bill or EastEnders. Now Setanta have gone belly-up there's really only Sky and they have a rather full boxing agenda.

 

Unfortunately, the Parliamentary bash was swallowed up in the afterglow of Haye's victory which indicated that as far as the media is concerned pro boxing will always be top of the bill, except around the time of the Olympics.

 

It was a jolly and informative soiree, though when the division bell sounded, the assembled Ministers, MPs – among them, John Prescott who we know can thrown a mean left jab – leapt into action like fighters coming out for the next round

 

The gathering attracted an eclectic bunch of politicos and pugs. Frank Bruno was there, so was Barry McGuigan and Charlie Magri though one notable absentee from the professional ranks was Frank Warren. 

 

If it was intended to show that amateur boxing is throwing down  a gauntlet to the pro game by offering prize money that will entice talented young amateurs to resist the lure of the paid-ranks, it was rather ironic that at the same time Warren was concluding a deal to scooped yet another top British amateur to join his stable of Olympians – the 19-year-old welterweight, Ronnie Heffron (pictured).

 

Said to be one of the brightest emerging stars around and a surefire tip for a 2012 medal, Heffron, the former ABA champion at senior and junior level and much in the mould of fellow Lancastrian, Ricky Hatton, leaves the amateurs with some rancour, miffed at being overlooked for selection for some meaningful tournaments and now being told he – or Warren - must pay the British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA) £22,000 which they claim to have invested in his future. 

 

In fact, he had also only been on their podium scheme for two months and has repaid the £2,000 he has received. 

 

It will be interesting to see how far BABA's chairman Derek Mapp gets with the demand for the rest. Breath should not be held. Apart from anything else, it has antagonised Warren who previously had promised not to approach any potential young Olympian in the run up to 2012. We wonder if that will now remain the case. 

 

He is also less than enamoured at the appointment of Carl Froch's pro trainer Robert McCracken as the new performance director of BABA, following the short-lived appointment of Kevin Hickey who had himself replaced the popular long-serving Terry Edwards, jocked off despite GB's glowing record of achievements, not least in  Beijing.

 

Warren points out that that McCracken is not exactly giving up his day job training the world super-middleweight Champion Froch – who will be spending some time at the splendidly refurbished BABA HQ in Sheffield – plus  a number of other fighters on the books of rival pro promoter Mick Hennessey. 

 

Could this give Hennessey an unfair advantage if and when it came to signing any of the GB squad after the Olympics? There is no doubt that McCracken, an excellent trainer who boxed with distinction as a world middleweight title contender is an honourable man. But it may raise the question of a conflict of interest. 

 

Also, we wonder, what happens if Froch is engaged in a bout in the Super-Series, to which he is contracted, say during the next Commonwealth Games? Whose corner would McCracken feel obliged to be in? These matters are not insurmountable, of course, and we wish the revamped amateur set-up and the new WSB well. 

 

Anything that puts a few bob in the boxers pockets has to be good. Our main hope is that commitments to the league, where there will be no head-guards or vests, with bouts over five rounds scored on the professional ten point system, do not adversely affect preparations for the Olympics, where the sport reverts to traditional amateur rules.

 

What really does intrigue as though is the inevitable upcoming confrontation between Derek Mapp and Frank Warren. Not to mention Dr Wu and a certain shock-haired-haired gent from the United States. Don would not be King if he didn't have something to say about it. Rather loudly.